Archeologists Find Infants Wearing Other Kids' Skulls as Helmets

Archaeologists have uncovered a strange type of head covering on infant remains in Ecuador: "helmets" made of other juveniles' skulls.

The 2,100 year-old remains from the Guangala culture are described in a new paper published in the journal Latin American Antiquity.

In the paper's abstract, the researchers describe the helmets as "mortuary headgear," suggesting that they were used in burial rituals.

It may look like the cover of a Cannibal Corpse album, but the image above depicts a real-life infant skull that was excavated in Ecuador—and it's wearing a helmet made of another child's head.

The bizarre helmets, uncovered between 2014 and 2016 in Salango, Ecuador, are part of the pre-Columbia Guangala culture and are detailed in a new paper published in the journal Latin American Antiquity. While the helmets seem to prove the saying "to the victor goes the spoils," archaeologists who excavated and studied the two skulls believe it's more about burial traditions.

"We have a fairly good idea that this was about ritually ensuring the protection of these children after death," Sara Juengst, one of the lead archaeologists on the study, told Popular Mechanics in an email. "Everyone was surprised to find this, from start to finish!"

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The dig began after a local construction project in Salango disturbed a series of 11 burial sites along the coast. It was immediately clear that these were not your typical burial sites, Juengst said, so one of the researchers removed the infant skulls, still encased in dirt, to preserve them on the way back to the lab in Charlotte, North Carolina . Upon analysis, the team found that the bones were 2,100 years old.

Sara Juengst/UNC Charlotte

Outside the fact that the archaeologists discovered skull helmets at all, the main thing that's unusual about this burial site is that the helmets are placed on children, in particular.

Historically, children were often given special burial treatment to preserve their "presocial and wild souls," according to the paper. "By treating deceased children in unusual or symbolic ways, people created and controlled their universes—given that children’s souls, in particular, acted as benefactors to the living and affected agricultural production, human fertility, and seasonal patterns of rain."

That's to say that children had perceived special importance in South America thousands of years ago. That theory is further supported by a 15th-century Peruvian dig site that contained the remains of 137 sacrificed children and 200 llamas—thought to be the largest mass sacrifice of children in history. Not to mention, small shells and stone ancestral figurines were placed around the children's heads in their burial mounds.

There are plenty of examples of burials accompanied by additional skulls in South America, Juengst said, but none were used as headgear and it's extremely rare to see the skulls coming from children. The team, composed of scientists from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Universidad Técnica De Manabí in Ecuador, reached out to colleagues from other research institutions and combed through related literature, but found nothing even remotely similar to this dig.

Sara Juengst/UNC Charlotte

While there isn't any direct evidence at the site to suggest that the children wearing skull helmets were actually sacrificed, the burial site was found above a layer of volcanic ash, suggesting a relationship to an eruption and subsequent food shortage. That does line up with what the archaeologists found when examining the children's bones closely, as they showed signs of malnutrition. The study also says it's possible that the infants were sacrificed as part of a larger ritual that was a direct response to the eruption.

Based on how tightly the skulls were placed on the two infants' heads, it's likely that the skulls used for the helmets still had flesh intact when they were placed on the other children's heads. Otherwise, the skulls would not have stayed in place on the infants' heads.

If the skulls indicate that the children wearing helmets were thought of as precious to the spiritual order, what should we make of the other children whose heads became the actual helmets? According to Juengst, there may have been socioeconomic status differences at play, despite all of the bones showing signs of disease and malnutrition.

"Another possibility is that the extra skulls were children who died first and were modified during later rituals," Juengst said. "The fact that there were other people buried there without these helmets is interesting—it's possible that these infants (or their families) held special roles in society which merited the extra skulls. But all the burials in these burials mounds were treated specially in some way, so it could be different elements of a much larger ritual that we are just beginning to uncover."

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